184 J. G. BOURINOT 



a refuge from the troaehery aud bigotry of kiugs and priests iu Europe, but the Huguenot 

 settlements of Ribaut and Laudoiinière were soon destroyed by the greed and fanaticism 

 of the false Spaniard, and, when a new century dawned, the Spanish flag was the only 

 sign of European dominion from the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen regions of the north. 



During the first decade of the seventeenth century there happened three remarkable 

 events in the history of the continent of America. In the western part of Nova Scotia, 

 then Acadie or Cadie, on the banks of a beautiful basin where the tumultuous tides of 

 the Bay of Fundy ebb and flow, we see a sleepy old town which recalls another world 

 and another century. In the June days the air is redolent with the perfume of the 

 apple-blossom and the hawthorn, the bells of ox-teams tinkle in the quiet streets, and the 

 whole town bears the aspect of a dignified old age, which, having had its share of the 

 world's excitement, now only asks to be left alone to spend the remainder of its years in 

 placid case. There it was, iu the beginning of the seventeenth century, Sieur de Monts 

 and his French compatriots laid the foundation of the old settlement of Port Royal, which 

 was long the capital of Acadie and the beginning of the French régime in the great region of 

 New France. Two years later, in 1607, a little colony of English ventured into Virginia, 

 and althoirgh in these days the only vestiges of that settlement are a few tombstones and 

 grassy mounds, which are themselves rapidly disappearing beneath the encroachment of 

 the tides, the site of Jamestown must ever be interesting to the historian and the states- 

 man as the commencement of that remarkable experiment of colonization which has 

 established a federal union of over sixty-four millions of people, distinguished for their 

 energy, their enterprise, and their capacity for self-government. Only a year later, in 

 1*308, Champlain, sailor, explorer and statesman, founded the colony of Canada on those 

 picturesque heights on which, in the course of nearly three centuries, a city has grown, 

 so remarkable for its natural beauty, its capacity for defence, and its memorials of the 

 history of France in America. 



The first decade of the seventeenth century will ever be memorable lor the found- 

 ation of that " Old Dominion " which must receive honourable mention as the pioneer 

 colony in the plantations of English America, and for the genesis of that new Dominion 

 which, two centuries aud a half after the settlement of Quebec, was to stretch between 

 two oceans, and comprise an area of territory almost as great as that of the nation which 

 was born at Jamestown in 160*7. 



Port Royal, known in later times as Annapolis, in honour of a not very brilliant 

 English queen, is therefore the first permanent settlement made by Europeans between 

 Florida aud the Arctic regions. Nova Scotia and Cape Breton have the oldest history of 

 any part of the Dominion of Canada ; ' for there is little doubt that their shores were visited 

 by the Norsemen, the Basques and Bretons, the Cabots and the Portuguese in the course 

 of those adventurous voyages whose dim traditions and uncertain records have long per- 

 plexed, aud must continue to perplex, the students of the ancient annals and cartography 

 of this continent. Indeed there much reason for the theory, to which I have previously 

 referred, that John Cabot first made one of the capes of the island ; but without dwelling 

 again on this vexed question, it is sufficient to know that Cape Breton and Acadie or 



' " As early as 1504 the fishermen of these latter people [Bretons and Normans] seem to have been on the 

 northern coasts, and we owe to them the name of Cape Breton, which is thought to be the oldest French name in 

 our American geography." Justin VVinsor, " Christopher Columbus," p. 555. 



